The West, particularly the USA, is a civilization of packages. They can give a very good visual presentation of things, but the package does not imply good quality of products. US space products often lagged behind Soviet products especially in the space industry. In the USSR the situation was different. The quality of packaging was poor, but the quality of products was superb, Mr. Sivkov said.

You are right about the Saturn V, and relatively low cost of the NK-33.

However, the NK-33 has some interesting features to it, which makes it a good engine. They have the highest thrust to weight ratio of any LOX/RP-1 engine. They can burn Oxygen-rich, whereas US engines burn fuel rich. IIRC, they can also be throttled to 50% of their thrust, and this feature was to be use for a re-usable launch vehicle.

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.